A Fake Panerai fan or Paneristi likes to give his Italian diving watch a new look in the form of high-quality leather straps. Popular points of contact include the German manufacturers Corrigia or Mays Berlin. In this article I would like to talk about the manufacturer Greenpilot-Watchstraps, whose owner Christian Ahrend has also launched a new Panerai strap collection. The leather for this comes from the famous traditional Horween tannery and the Canadian leather specialist OA Leather Supply. With the so-called triple folding technology and the GPF Mod Dep clasp, Christian also pays great attention to faithful implementation. On top of that, you can also completely customize or configure the ribbons and, for example, select the yarn colors or the shape of the ribbon end, define the ribbon length and the number of holes, etc. So let’s take a look at the ribbons…
Leather from Horween and Canada
Horween is one of the most famous tanneries in the world. The family business, which has been operating in Chicago since 1905, is particularly known for the so-called Shell Cordovan, a horse leather that is used, for example, in very high-priced shoes and belts.
But Horween doesn’t just do horse leather: the cowhide is also super flexible, soft and dimensionally stable, naturally smells like leather and goes perfectly with retro watches such as the Panerai PAM 632 with vintage brown lume and dark brown dial. A leather strap from Greenpilot Watchstraps’ Panerai line is based on the Horween Baseball Glove Tan leather. The name of the leather fits like a glove: baseball gloves often come in a similar, orange-brown color. The yarn provides a nice contrast.
Another Panerai leather strap from Greenpilot-Watchstraps is based on the Horween Buckaroo Tan cowhide with a waxy surface and pull-up effect. Through the use of this so-called greasy leather (bending, stretching, abrasions, etc.) a characteristic patina quickly forms. This effect is typical of this type of leather and is intentional, underlining the retro character of watches like the Panerai 632. Nice-to-know: Cowboys on the east coast of the USA in the California and Great Basin (Nevada) region are known as “buckaroos”.
Canadian leather straps on the Panerai “Fiddy”
Christian from Greenpilot-Watchstraps spares no effort and imports additional leather for the Panerai line from Canada from Oakson Authentic (OA) Leather Supply. Great: The owner of OA Leather Supply, Ian Guenter, has produced a short film for each leather on offer, in which everything about the leather is explained, for example its strength, thickness, structure, kink behavior, etc.
A little digression: If you’re wondering where the nickname “Fiddy” for the PAM 127 comes from: Apparently the American rapper 50 Cent wore a Panerai 127 and when he was asked what a huge knocker it was , he said in the broadest slang “It’s my Fiddy” (Nineteen-Fifty = Nineteen-Fiddy = 1950).